beeswax

Wax, both paraffin wax and beeswax, is a material as fundamental to batik as dye and cloth. For the last few years I've been aware that there are global issues with honey bees (colony collapse disorder, or CCD) hence a potential for shortages of beeswax. And that alongside peak oil and rising oil prices will undoubtedly be peak paraffin wax and rising paraffin wax prices. I also knew that I didn't know that much about either, and so in January set about researching.

I started with paraffin wax, but fairly soon it appeared there are far more issues to learn about with beeswax. The article was written for the Batik Guild Magazine, in the event an edited version was published a few weeks ago. The full version is on my website here though the research is ongoing and will be updated. I will write up the paraffin wax research later this year too.

In the way that soy wax has been developed as a resist in the US (though I understand it's not that good for batik), and the Malaysians are working with a oilpalm waste resist, I feel in Europe we need to consider finding and developing a future home-grown source for wax, as an alternative to paraffin wax and supplement to beeswax. I thought I'd read somewhere that snowberry was used in the past for its wax qualities - berries I assume, not leaves - but can't find a reference for it now. That a new source could in fact be an old source is just as feasible as one developed from waste from another process or product.

Researching beeswax was so interesting I have become enthused to take up beekeeping! But compared to the small scale growing of woad I began last year, I think instead I will see if there is a beekeeper locally who would be happy for me to help and learn from them. As wonderful and interesting as woad growing has been, I feel it would be too big a commitment for me to try to grow as much as I envisage using, and beekeeping would be even more of a responsibility.

a science of qualities

For much of today I've been thinking about scientific process, following my last post on wax temperature. I have been making batik since 1990, so that's nineteen years (wow! is it really that long!). For much of this time I've had a good feeling for when the wax is not hot enough, when the room/ambient temperature is not warm enough, when the wax has crossed the threshold of 'good', and so on. The same with dyes, colour mixing, in fact everything to do with the batik process. Some I learnt from my early tutors Jin and Latif in Malaysia, but most "knowing" has been gained intuitively, through practice and observation and awareness... and over time. For instance I've never needed a thermometer to know if the room was warm enough for batikking - I came to realise I just had to consider what I was wearing. Anything more than a t-shirt and sweatshirt meant it was too cold.

My experiment last Monday in wax temperatures at different Tixor Malam settings was generalised/experimental. It was not set up to be controlled and perfectly measured, because I was more focused on the artwork I was doing. My thinking today was that if it had been a perfectly measured and controlled experiment (when it would be hard to also focus on artwork) , then that would give me precise results for only those variables (eg that wax mix). Another experiment would be needed for each variable. How maddening is that?

But more than maddening, I feel such a method takes away knowledge and understanding rather than giving it. If I heat the waxpot from calculations based on test results rather than on an innate awareness of what is necessary, garnered from experience, have I lost something fundamental?

Which led me to thinking about A Science of Qualities. I first heard about this from Brian Goodwin, I think at a talk he was giving at the University of Plymouth a few years ago. It is akin to Goethean science, and draws on impressions, intuition, sensory perception and sensory imagination, context, history, seeing in beholding, appropriate response, dialogue and consensus, and evaluation. It was so exciting when I first heard of this approach - inside me was singing 'that's what I do!, that's what I do!', meaning it's how I approach working on a painting or design. Or visiting a place, seeing a new phenomena, travelling, whatever. I don't do it in such a structured coordinated way nor with an ability to add headings to each element of my process, but what I do resonates with the pattern.

The Science of Qualities allows both the essence and the bigger connections to be expressed, through seeing the whole rather than the parts (holistic versus reductionist). But somehow I don't think it is appropriate to demonstrate wax temperatures - but now I think: why not? Isn't it easier to tell someone that from experience I found if I am wearing more than a sweatshirt the room's too cool for successful batikking than to say from experimentation I found that the thermometer must be above a particular temperature? Although it's easier for them to measure their room with a thermometer than to get me to stand there with or without sweatshirt or more... the idea for them to learn their own clothing level is much better, as their space may have variables I have not accounted for (drafts, higher ceiling, different humidity etc).

I think why I've gone the reductionist route on much of my sustainability research is that, supposedly, there's more cred to the results. I can say x y z with certainty rather than 'in my experience' which anyone could dismiss as artist waffle. Sadly.

I dug out a few articles about A Science of Qualities - this one I've read before, it's long but page 3 has a few appropriate paras. There's also this and this. Page 5 here (scroll down) describes a newish book by Brian Goodwin which is now on my reading list.

woad - and spring?

Although there was some more snow last night, the more recent pattern has been of warming weather, that joyous feeling that spring is on its way. The woad plant that was out all winter (in the black pot) has put on a spurt, whereas the greenhoused plants don't seem to have grown so much. More than this, the out-wintered woad's spurt loks suspiciously like a flower stem is on the agenda. The in-wintered plants have more bulk still though. The same pattern can be seen at Helen's, where those that had been under demijohnish covers until about a month ago have more and larger leaves, but those without cover have a definitive upward growing shape.


photos taken 1 March 2009

... and through the square window

Gazing out of my studio window is one of the pleasures of this workspace. For many years I've marvelled at how the seasons affect this same view - the changes in colour and atmosphere. My future studio space may not have such a luxury unfortunately... there might be no view of nature at all, what a depressing thought. The snow here was from earlier in February.

woad and snow

The (now second year) woad plants were covered in about four inches/100 mm of snow for a few days earlier this month, and also survived a very heavy frost (for Cornwall). The smaller of the plants has been out all winter, the larger-leafed in a plastic greenhouse since December. I found Helen (the Hort) had done the same at hers by covering a few plants. But I hesitate to leave them under cover too long in case they don't get enough daylight and sun to develop blue in the leaves, so all are now uncovered. Some seeds that didn't sprout last year may be doing so now - or the plant is dividing itself below ground and resprouting.

Photo taken 8 February 2009

UN international year of natural fibres

The UN's International Year of Natural Fibres is launched today. Its objectives are to:

- Raise awareness and stimulate demand for natural fibres;
- Promote the efficiency and sustainability of the natural fibres industries;
- Encourage appropriate policy responses from governments to the problems faced by natural fibre industries;
- Foster an effective and enduring international partnership among the various natural fibres industries.

Lots of events around the world are planned for this year, including in Britain an International Conference in London in December (though it seems more directed to industry than artistry) and an international textile conference in Leeds in September.



Another exciting conference:

Making Futures - the crafts in the context of emerging global sustainability agendas.

Organised by Plymouth College of Art and Design (PCAD), it is taking place in September 2009 at Mount Edgcumbe House, near Saltash in Cornwall. I hope to be there!



And, because some things come in threes, the next issue of Selvedge magazine is themes around 'Frugal'. I was asked if I'd like to advertise but as well as not knowing what I'd be advertising I feel it goes against the essence of what I'm trying to do. The magazine is beautifully produced with gorgeous photography, and even the adverts are a pleasure to look at, but it has a large readership and global circulation. Being just a humble artist I want to get on with things quietly and minimally and appropriately and... frugally. Self-promotion there seems arrogant and loud and wrong, for me, in this context. But I am looking forward to seeing the next issue.

second woad harvest and process

On 14 October I cut and started processing the second woad crop. Possibly I could have left it for longer but with more bad weather forecast and as the plants had grown quite quickly since the last harvest in early September, I didn't want to risk losing them altogether.

In total from Helen's and my four pot plants I cut 625 grams of leaves, which is 125 g more than at the last harvest. However, I seem to have made only 1.4 grams of woad pigment, or as I should call it to be more correct, indigotin. Last time around it was about 2 grams. I have a couple of theories for this, some related to growing and the other to processing.

This time I didn't spend an hour beating the strained liquid trying to get the foam to go yellow. I beat it for only about ten minutes with the hand-wind whisk - thinking that as blue has come up into the foam that should be enough. I since have read somewhere that it's far better to whisk for much longer, even if your arms start aching (as mine did last September), because that way you get all the potential indigotin out. So, short cuts and laziness are not worth pursuing! I will beat until my arms go blue (again) next time.

On the growing side, the middle picture here shows two groups of short leaves and one of long leaves. The left hand ones I grew here, the right two groups Helen grew. Those on the far right came from one of several well-grown plants, grown on under an improvised cloche (a large plastic demijohn with base removed). These plants had begun to take on the expected shape and density of a woad plant, although were still smaller. But 'something' in or lacking in the soil has prevented the plants from taking up/creating blue pigment in their leaves - I believe they got more direct sunshine at Helen's than the plants outside my house (though being in front of a sun-trap wall may have made a difference to mine). But my woad plants also had an additional caffeine shot... topped up with more Rainforest Alliance coffee dregs. They also had orange street-light by night.

By chance, an official Met Office rainfall recorder lives in the village - he's been recording for over 40 years now. His recent article in the local newsletter gives July and August of this year as his wettest and fourth wettest ever. With the first week of September having a further 107 mm, those two months plus week gave the village around a third of our annual average, and in the usually drier months. So it was wet. Very wet. Luckily though, the rest of September was better - some very hot days (or was that in October?). Certainly I thought the drier sunnier days would help with 'bluing' the leaves. As they did - thankfully - with keeping the slugs at bay!

So I am surprised to have ended up with less indigotin from more leaf. I have some other thoughts about the growing process to go in another post later.

art, environment, politics

A few weeks ago I gave a slide-talk to a lovely art group in St Agnes (mid Cornwall) about my batik and inspiration. Hopefully they were inspired enough for a workshop next year!

While running through and updating 'the talk' beforehand, two slides in particular made me think. 'For Antarctica' was made in 1991 when I was back in England for a few months for family reasons. I had been living away, working and travelling, for over three years by then, including in Australia. In 1989, to show my support for the World Park Antarctica movement then in full swing in Australia, I handed in my letter to prime minister Bob Hawke on the afternoon I cycled into Canberra. To my surprise, the very next morning he announced that Australia would join with France and sign the Antarctica treaty. Of course it's unlikely it was my letter that had swayed it, but the timing made me feel good and that taking action brings results!

Two years later in Shropshire I was astounded, dismayed, aghast... British environmental groups were only just gearing up for the Antarctica campaign here! Feeling very emotional and energetic about the matter, I absolutely had to make a batik - my contribution to the campaign.

I've just remembered... I also made a second Antarctica batik using the same words as in the Hawke letter ("the purse may lose but the penguins will be happy") and sent it to the then British prime minister. I can't recall who that was off hand - Major I think. But it didn't have the same effect, there was no next day announcement. I'll see if I can dig a photo of the batik out and post it later.

The second batik is 'Pacific Revenge', made in 1996. It was a response to the latest French nuclear testing in the Pacific, something that made me really angry yet feel so helpless that the only way I could express the anger constructively was through art.

I have a deeper connection with the issue of nuclear testing in the Pacific: in 1985 I was staying in France with a former French neighbour when the Rainbow Warrior was blown up in New Zealand. My friend was a member of Greenpeace in France (as was I in Britain) - she was distressed but unwilling to translate the newspaper front pages for me. Of course I didn't understand until I got back home and learned the French government was responsible.

In late 1987 I arrived in New Zealand and heard that the Rainbow Warrior was soon to be towed out to sea to be sunk to form a living reef (and memorial). I paid my respects in Auckland harbour beforehand, an emotional time (even all these years later).

So, by the mid-90s, the last thing I and many others expected was the French to carry out more nuclear tests in the Pacific. I kind of thought nations had grown up, beyond all that aggressive stuff, things they'd never use anyway (after Hiroshima). So this symbolic batik emerged: it's a shield bug on a french bean. The bug has been genetically modified by Pacific Islanders* and is now indestructible... and so that's it for the bean crop.

GM was another environmental issue of the day (and still is sadly) and like nuclear a technology that can be put to evil as well as good purposes. As much Pacific art stems from family, ancestry, generations etc, it seemed appropriate to bring this into the art.

Anyway, back to my thoughts of a few weeks ago when looking through the slides. Over the last few months a lot of my time has been spent analysing the Environmental Statement (ES) for a local windfarm proposal. I am without doubt a supporter of wind energy, but not at the cost of nature and ecosystems. This site is renowned for various species, including wintering golden plover. Several years ago I'd assisted the RSPB with a new survey of these birds and so I knew of the importance of the site. I had expected only to spend a few days getting a response together but the ES was so big and complex that it just went on and on... other than woad processing I have got very little proper work done in this time.

The windfarm response went off last Monday, and I have learned my lesson: don't take on stuff that's above my abilities! And, if I again feel that emotionally strongly about something, make a batik instead! Art is what I do!

*not to suggest that Pacific Islanders were thinking of doing this, but I wouldn't have blamed them if they had.

spirit of mystery

In the past (and hopefully again soon) I have given school batik workshops – they are hard work (preparation) but always good fun. Onesuch was with Kea School, as shown in these photos, for a Sense of Place project. The theme was 'The Voyage of the Mystery', and the batik style/approach was Aboriginal Art.

The Mystery was a Cornish lugger, a traditional small fishing boat, that in 1854 sailed with seven Cornishmen from Newlyn bound for sunny Australia. The journey to Melbourne took 115 days. Indeed it seems a miracle it even arrived – the boat was only 33 feet long (about 10 metres) with a beam of 11 foot 6 (3.5 metres). It wasn't meant to be ocean-going, and indeed most men on board had never been out of sight of land! At the time, the Mystery was the smallest boat on record to have made such a long voyage. Read more about the voyage of the Mystery here.

Now, in 2008, the Spirit of Mystery rides the waves. Pete Goss has built a new lugger to the same specifications, and along with several family members is re-creating the journey made by those Cornish fishermen 154 years ago. They are using the same navigational tools and technology as then – no modern gizmos. Other than communication tools that is, so they can update their blog (and stay in 'instant' touch with family). They already have had ups and downs (in wind and seas) but the boat is running as well as the original Mystery.

So where is the connection with Sustainable Batik (other than through school workshops)? For starters, a quote from today's entry is a good one for natural dye growers to remember: "Mother Nature rules out here and you just have to make the best of what you have."

There is something more, that I'm not sure I can explain well in this blog. It is something about pride and community, pride that Goss has taken this on, has recognised our forefathers did something quite immense as well as brave, and is re-living it for us, bringing part of our history alive.

It's my hope that my own experiences from living in Australia in the 1980s and introducing Aboriginal Art (as far as I am able to understand it - another blog!) into schools also brings something more meaningful and substantial than just playing with wax and dye.

frugality (blog action day - poverty)

"Frugality does not mean poverty or deprivation. It means the wise use of resources."

Paul Hawken in 'The 11th Hour'.
For full quote, see NPQ (4th from bottom).


Rather than write about poverty, the theme of this year's Blog Action Day, I thought instead I'd consider the wise use of resources as the means to avoid it. Partly I am inspired by that wonderful organisation Practical Action which devises and/or introduces very simple technologies to lift struggling communities out of dependency or poverty.

A recent mailout from Practical Action describes a fish-rice culture introduced to Bangladeshi rice farmers. A minor re-design of rice fields allows fish to also grow there. The rice thrives from the fish naturally fertilising it, consuming insect pests and circulating oxygen, giving an apparent 10% increase in yield and savings in purchased pesticide and fertiliser. As well as having fish to eat, the farmers now also grow vegetables and bananas on the dykes.

Fish-rice culture reminds me of the traditional silk production cycle – silkworms feeding on mulberry bushes, the cocoon waste following silk harvesting fed to fish in the pond, with fish waste being scraped from the pond floor annually to fertilise the mulberry bushes.

My dream is to find a similar cycle for woad production. At the moment, in theory, I can use organic chicken manure to fertilise soil (for nitrogen content). Perhaps chickens will eat post-extraction plant waste, but there isn't much of it (currently it goes in the compost bin). Perhaps as woad is such a slug-magnet there'd be mutual benefit with poultry living alongside? Whether simple or complex the cycle turns out to be, I said it was a dream and probably it will stay that way. I don't have and am unlikely to ever have enough land to grow enough woad for all my own dyeing – I will always need to buy it in.

Earlier in the year I visited Ian Howard in Norfolk, who's been at the forefront of woad revival in Britain for some years now. Since processing my comparatively meagre crop a month ago I have thought a lot about the time and effort he must put in, leading to the high cost of woad-sourced indigotin. Occasionally I've wondered whether it is really worth it... but then think back to Procion dyes and the minimal information available about its production. It means so much more to know who has grown and produced the dye and where, how, and why! To know this farmer has and is increasing specialist knowledge of the crop, knowledge that would have been garnered over generations of past woaders. To trust that he knows he needs to take care of his land in order to continue to grow it, and to maintain both quality and financial return. That must mean a wise use of resources.

Synthetic dye... dye with no entity, no place, let alone no place in nature, and virtually no history. Dye without a soul. Manufactured anonymously somewhere in the world from petrochemical from somewhere else in the world, packaged up and sold on somewhere else again. There is no trail, no depth – any dyeing from this becomes just a colour, nothing more. So how to be sure resources have been used wisely? Impossible, it seems, with Procion MX.

One is cyclical, working within nature's limits; the other based on linear production. Cyclical is frugal, implying taking only what nature can afford – some years not much, but in others a bonanza. In comparison linear can only ever lead to poverty somewhere for someone, surely?


update, midnight at end of Blog Action Day

Having spent the last hour reading other blogger entries for this day addressing poverty, I have felt moved enough to do something more (the concept of Blog Action Day works!). Instead of occasional donations I am setting up a regular payment to Practical Action. Their donation page says the following:

Please do something special today. Offer the hand of friendship to poor communities by making a regular donation by Direct Debit. Be part of the solutions that will change the lives of people in poor communities day after day, year after year.

For over 40 years Practical Action has been investing in simple and extremely effective technologies that give determined people the power to change their lives. Our experience tells us that you can’t solve poverty by giving handouts – instead we work together with people in their homes and communities, listening and learning from them. We work at the heart of desperate communities across the world, helping people to find simple, sustainable solutions to problems they face.

- We don’t believe in imposing quick fixes. So we make sure that all our projects are sustainable, use local materials and are organised and run by local people
- We overcome poverty across the world using practical, tangible and often innovative solutions. We use simple technologies and share our knowledge widely.
- We make sure that the money that funds our work goes directly to our offices in that country rather than the government, so you can be sure the money goes only to the people who need it.

quality not quantity

I woke up yesterday morning thinking about my two grams of extracted woad pigment... of the amount of work involved in its production. And, even allowing for the cool wet summer's affect on growth, how disproportionate is the effort to the result.

Later I read this article about Cornish vineyard Camel Valley Wines. The weather knocked out nearly 80% of their grapes but also created circumstances for those remaining being ideal for their sparkling wine 'Cornwall'. So if 'Cornwall' can compete with Champagne (as the vineyard owners believe), then I shouldn't be at all despondent about my measly woad pigment result...

Quality it is then. Not quantity.

. . .

While writing this I've been wondering whether there's a connection between grapes getting extra fizz from the particular circumstances of this year's summer, and the exuberance of foam I got during woad processing, also experienced this year for the first time by Helen Melvin (in North Wales) (see previous post and comments). Is it an omen of the champagne of blues to come?

getting blue!

On the tray is all the woad cut at Helen's on September 4th, about 450g. Several plants had grown better than mine, that is, they had bulked out though were still not as fully grown as expected. Others were middling, like mine, with a few well and truly eaten! But only three caterpillars emerged during the wash!

The four pots from my front garden yielded a further 50g, so in all I had about half a kilo. About half I'd been hoping for – but quite acceptable considering August's lousy weather. The left hand pile is good wholesome leaves, the top those that were fairly battered, bruised, part-eaten and part-rotting (bad bits later cut out). Can't quite remember what the right hand pile is – possibly small and slightly battered leaves.

While washing my leaves I felt they were more blue-green than Helen's, so compared them. One-all I think, if mine are bluer but hers grew better. I'll come back to the growing stuff later.

Half a kilo of chopped leaves - including stalks. I reckon stalks must contain some indigo too, and having so few leaves/weight I couldn't afford to be discriminatory.

Whisking time is telling time... when the alchemy works or doesn't. In my case I was leaping with joy to see so much blue pigment (indigotin) in the foam, and appearing so quickly! I was expecting the foam to turn 'back to green' within 10-20 minutes of whisking, but all I was getting was more and more foam, and blue. The bucket was less than two-thirds full of liquid - top third all foam! I tried scooping it off and re-whisking, I tried mixing the foam back into the liquid, I tried giving it a break for some minutes. But still foam came up good and blue. In the back of my mind was a vague memory from one or more of the various indigo workshops I've been on, where a similar stage in vat-making required stirring to introduce oxygen - and being told soon after that it had worked and I could stop stirring. And so an hour later I convinced myself that I surely had whisked enough, there certainly was blue there (and everywhere!), and I could move on to the next stage - bottling. The memory of stirring at an indigo workshop remains vague and, in the light of day (I stopped whisking around 1 am!), not making sense. Either I was confusing the process with another, or we were processing woad (or other) leaves to make indigotin without me realising. Anyway, whatever it was, it helped me at that time - I had started to think about what I was doing, the process that was happening, instead of just following instructions!

This yellowy-green is the colour of the liquid going into the jars.

Total of seventeen jars. At this stage I deviated from the instructions, which called for periods of settling and siphoning off of the top liquid, followed by a consolidation of all bottom liquids into one container, with the top liquid being diluted with water and siphoned. Each time I pulled off the top liquid it was greenish, making me suspect there was 'blue' in there too. I saved all siphoned liquid, letting that too settle before re-siphoning. In all, I had three separate siphoning stages. After a few days of settling, some jars were showing a central body of amber liquid, surrounded by greener tinted liquid and a strong blue bottom layer (see previous post). It demonstrated to me that my earlier instinct was right, that the top greenish liquid had contained some blue pigment, and a longer settling time was all that was needed.

All liquid from the last siphoning went into the bucket, and a few days later when its top liquid was siphoned off it revealed yet another bottom layer of blue!

Although it obviously wasn't traditional to use filter papers, I did think it was perhaps the modern take on a traditional filtering technique - and had read it would yield more indigotin. I also thought it might yield more if I didn't repeatedly 'water down and re-siphon' the liquid, as early on the top liquid had proved to also contain blue pigment. So I started filtering undiluted liquid - some greener, some bluer. My instinct paid off again - see how golden it came out (in a beer glass from a Bodmin Beer Festival, and looks good enough to drink!).

Filtering started at a rate of about two drops a second. By the end it was one drop a minute, which is why by then four filters were on the go! But slowness wasn't the imminent problem. Soon after starting the filtering, I was wondering how to get the pigment off the paper at the end. The more I thought about it the more I wished I hadn't started down this route. Perhaps an upside is that it made me concentrate on related chemical processes to look for a solution. There may be one but far too long-winded to take seriously, though I might check it out sometime.

Two dried filter papers with skims of pigment over some, and a crust in parts. The crust cracked up like dried mud. If it had been thicker it might have picked off cleanly, but for me it took some paper fibres with it. The very thin layers I scored lightly with a scalpel before brushing the fine powder away. But some paper fibres went too. Pigment and fibres weighed in at two grams.

Four filter papers, as much pigment as possible removed. Took about a day. Now, had I followed instructions to consolidate the bottom liquid more and dilute it down with water, this end result might have been different. Probably I'd have had just one filter paper, so the pigment on it would have been thicker and more easily removable. Possibly it would have not seeped so far into the paper had the pigment been suspended in water instead of the remnant alkaline solution. Possibly... probably...

One thing is for sure though: a lot of pigment remains on the paper. This macro-shot shows how much is wasted. Criminal considering time and effort - mine, Helen's and nature's. I won't be using filter paper again.

With thanks to Teresinha Roberts, Helen (in North Wales) Melvin, and Ian Howard for various processing instructions, guidance and encouragement; to Ian Howard, Isabella Whitworth, Vivien Prideaux, and Abi Evans for past indigo workshops which helped develop my understanding of the indigo-making process; and to Ian who supplied the seed I grew. And not forgetting members of the Natural Dyers list. Special thanks go to my good friend Helen (in North Cornwall) for patiently growing, watering and de-slugging my woad plants over the last few months.

straight and curly, and thin green lines

These photos were taken on August 2 (4 weeks ago) as I'd noticed a variation in the woad plants. Some plants had straight edged leaves, others were wavy. Helen (growing most of my woad) has also noticed this. I wonder if it's a genetic mutation, or a natural variation...

The plant that was bitten to the core by slugs is growing back well (leaves still small) (see bottom photo in last post), the other three have been chomped away at relentessly throughout August. There is less of them now than there was at the beginning of the month. In recent days I've been thinking caterpillars are more the cause than slugs. A Cabbage White butterfly was around and on the plants around the beginning of August, as were little yellow dots of eggs on the underside of leaves. I thought I'd got all off but no, every so often a tiny green line would show itself... a few days ago one thin green line was nearly up to full blown caterpillar size! (When very small I squeamishly have squashed them, but larger ones I take up the road to take their chances in the verge vegetation).

The August weather has been atrociously wet and cool, with a few February-like gales. Only occasionally did the sun shine but it was hardly ever summer-hot. I'm sure this won't have helped the crop either - I feel it's the cause for the (former) large outer leaves to have dried up, died in parts, or yellowed. The inner newly sprouting leaves are all good and healthy. Just right for nibbling. Undoubtedly. Hmmph.

None of the woad has had (nitrogen oriented) fertiliser in its soil, though Helen's beds had before she grew the earlier potato crops and mine had a good portion of home-compost. Perhaps fertiliser would have helped the plants gain strength. I've found an organic chicken rearer who I hope to get well-rotted chicken manure from next year. And perhaps next time butterfly netting would keep off the cabbage whites... Though most of the growth problem could be caused by their late start in life. They must be sown at the right time next year!

I am gearing up for harvesting and processing the leaves in several weeks time - acquiring equipment and organising workspace. And am working on batik drawings so I have cloth ready to dye soon after.

shredded woad

Helen, who is growing most of my woad for me, emailed a bit despairedly on Monday. Slugs being the main cause, and her concern that I wouldn't have any leaves left come harvest time. I popped over that afternoon, the following photos are from that visit. These first four show various stages of shreddedness... but most plants were doing just fine.

And so... slug control: Helen has access to sawdust, I have access to coffee grounds so we are trying both. The coffee was applied just before this photo around up-till-then unprotected plants. Most successful seems to be a copper ring (top and bottom right), but only a few plants have these, and only one has broken eggshells (white). Research suggests that coffee grounds release nitrogen into the soil, an element apparently loved by woad - or rather its uptake increases eventual pigment quantity. I've also read that coffee grounds have an anaerobic effect if applied too thickly, and that it's either acidic (which can't be too good when your soil is already acidic) or breaks down to neutrality (which shouldn't matter). There is more to consider though than woadish preference - nitrogen broken down by bacteria forms nitrous oxide (N2O), a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Not being a chemist I'm really not sure of the pros and cons of using it as slug repellent and soil fertiliser, or even of growing nitrogen-loving woad itself... but I will find out! At least the coffee grounds (like the sawdust) are already waste products that would eventually decompose anyway.

Helen has created three plots for the woad. The first is in a spare part of her raised walled veggie garden - I think she said courgettes were growing there until the slugs got 'em. The next is a raised bed that last grew potatoes; and the third is part of the bank that had been covered by carpet to kill couch grass (roots were dug out before planting). All sites get loads of lovely sun... and rain, it being the Cornish summer holidays now.

And finally, four of my five potted plants. Three are teenagers now and allowed out all night but the fourth (back left, in ceramic pot) is still a kid and comes in around midnight. A few days ago I came home feeling so unwell I didn't have the energy to bring it in... and yes, the slugs took advantage. But it's still growing. The fifth plant is elsewhere with the tomatoes and aubergines, a different mini-climate, so I can see how location changes growing patterns. All of mine have had coffee grounds protection from their first venture outdoors.

more woad pictures

For an agonising ten or so days only one woad seed had sprouted, but now of the five pots/ten seeds I still have here five are growing (one since thinned out). My friend Helen took in the other forty or so pots a few weeks ago to grow them on for me. They're in her greenhouse at the moment.

It's years since I've grown anything from seed and as I seemed to do OK before without too much effort, was panicking that something I'd done was wrong and I'd end the summer with no woad to dye with at all! Only a couple germinated at Helen's too and after analysing possible reasons, we decided we were being too precious with them, trying too hard, taking too much care and concern. My pots go out on the windowsill when I'm here but come inside at night, only because I worry they might be blown off! It was a mistake to start them growing inside the house - the first spent so long straining for the light that its stem is ridiculously long. I had tried to counter this by turning the pot by 180 degrees but won't again. The others are faring better by being outside from an early age, and from the pots being tilted to the light when inside. Ten days ago at Helen's I saw a good number of sprouts.

The difference in timing has surprised me and pleased me. Surprise as I assumed if conditions were right - light, warmth, moisture and whatever else makes seeds tick - all would come up within a few days. That they don't is great - they demonstrate the resilience of nature! Spreading your bets must give better chances than blowing it all on one seemingly good day. With woad's determination to do its own thing and not conform I feel confident we will have a great relationship!

images - the top one is from 20 May at 11 days old, the last from 30 May at 21 days old. It's my impression that the younger sprouts are producing new leaves faster, maybe because they weren't wasting time spurting stem, or maybe in response to climatic conditions. The point is that 21 days may be exceptional for this first sprout to be starting on its fifth pair of leaves.